the wire and the war on drugs (the poor)

I recently started watching The Wire, and I have to say I’m definitely a fan. It’s one of those HBO shows that manages to put the viewer in places he would never have been otherwise, in a seemingly very genuine atmosphere, with real people. (There’s a fine line with some of these types of shows and directors who are enamored of using untrained actors; seems to me you’ve got to give them just enough acting lessons to where they’re comfortable in front of the camera, but cut them off before they get all ‘actory.’ More on what that might mean another day.)

At any rate, it’s difficult to watch the show without feeling some empathy for the fictional--and thus by extrapolation, non-fictional residents of America’s dying big cities. The first season was shot in 2002, so even then the economy wasn’t nearly as down the crapper as today. But imagining children unable to play outside for fear of getting shot or getting stuck with a discarded needle or rolling in broken glass from crack vials--meanwhile the parents, even if they want to work find that the entire infrastructure of the city is fleeing, leaving behind boarded up houses, shuttered factories, and despair--it is as bleak a world as could be imagined.

These are all situations we’re aware of. Capital flight from urban areas, and the collapse of industry and with it decent-paying jobs that could actually have provided careers with benefits and futures for the working poor--this isn’t news.

But what occurred to me watching this show was what a perfectly designed weapon of mass destruction the war on drugs has been. Note that I say the weapon is the WAR on drugs--not the drugs themselves.

Yes, crack and heroin, and now oxycontin and other pharmaceuticals have devastated families, neighborhoods and entire cities, turning people into zombie stealing-machines unable to do or think of anything beyond that next hit. But what I notice is that poor people on BOTH sides of the drug war--an entire generation--was entirely occupied with battling this scourge, or with dealing with the fallout from it, or with trying to find a way to live their lives around it.

How could anyone think about seriously fighting as corporations moved their factories overseas and cut benefits and the government attacked the unions on behalf of capital--while their neighbors and kids were getting shot or going to prison or getting lost in a shooting gallery somewhere? Even the ‘good’ people in the drug war, the ones who earnestly wanted to make the world a better place, they were being tricked as well, distracted with this. They were given a sham war, a battle against their fellow citizens--other poor people who would have been natural allies in an effort to at least hang onto a decent life, a life where jobs pay a living wage, and where decisions aren’t automatically made to the benefit of investment bankers over workers.

The war on drugs was a war on the poor and the middle-class, and by that I mean the warriors on both sides were victims of a larger guiding principle: while they were distracted with crack and all the bullshit that goes along with it, their rights and any potential for having decent lives like their mothers and fathers had were systematically stripped away piece by piece.

nice people do?

A group in Britain is trying to shift the debate on drug policy. If more Britons have smoked pot than voted for the governing Labour Party last election, then one must presume the statement is true...

Unless Brits just...aren't nice! Hmm...

the law

See, here’s what your answer should be anytime someone uses the old ‘what are you afraid of, if you’ve done nothing wrong’ argument, when it comes to security and police: cops are humans. They are humans who make mistakes, often deadly ones. And, I will even go so far as to say that, as a very general rule, the type of person who goes into law enforcement is someone who is by nature unimaginative, narrow-minded, and prone to think within certain linear terms that have already been laid out for him.

Yes, there are cool cops. I’m sure there are brilliant thinkers out there who happen to be in law enforcement. But generally speaking, these people are the least evolved of us, the dim gatekeepers of the Black and White, without nuance, without gray areas, without imagination. They are the monkeys who are well-equipped to prevent our own violent monkey nature from boiling over, or to stop it when it does erupt. But frankly they are not good for much more than that.

And here’s the problem: to this type of thinker, Black and White is all he knows, or can know. To him, because he is the law, that which he does is justified, much like the famous Nixon argument: “I’m saying if the president does it, then it’s not illegal.”

So here we have a trio of Atlanta police officers, on their way to prison for killing a 92-year-old woman. The scary part is they had a no-knock warrant--albeit obtained illegally, but then, one must wonder how many illegally obtained warrants we never hear about. When the woman heard the officers knocking down her door,

‘A terrified Johnston, thinking she was victimized by a home invasion, fired a warning shot through the door. Narcotics officers responded with a hail of gunfire, killing her.’

The officers went on to plant marijuana in the home in order to make it appear as if they had justification (um, how?) in slaying this woman in cold blood.

The story goes on to tell the sad tale of these poor officers feeling pressured:

‘The FBI also found performance quotas of nine arrests and two search warrants a month expected of officers, McKenney said. Officers who failed to meet their quotas risked being transferred, he said. This helped explain, Carnes said, why Smith, Junnier and Tesler — devoted family men and who gave selflessly to the communities — began cutting corners through lies. “The pressures brought to bear” by the quotas had an impact on Smith, Junnier and Tesler, as well as other officers, Carnes said.’

Aw. Poor guys. Devoted family men who lied, planted evidence, and murdered a 92-year-old woman.

And with the ongoing erosion of our fourth amendment rights, don't expect this sort of thing to go away anytime soon. Here's what's really bugging me, though: if one of these cops hadn't broken down and admitted to the feds what happened--in exchange for a lighter sentence--this might never have come to light. We might have read about 'Elderly Woman Killed in Drug Raid,' and simply bought the story the cops offered up. If you or I or my neighbor has their door kicked in tomorrow, and the cops give us their explanation of what the person was doing wrong, how many of us even think for a second? How many of us just go, 'Oh. Drugs, huh?' and move on without a second thought?

Stories like this make you wonder how many people have died or gone to prison based on nothing more than some cop's tiny penis and his need to impress his boss.

War on Drugs

War on Drugs

They're trying to infiltrate our precious bodily fluids!

Even in tough economic times, the war on drugs (read: war on sanity) remains a cash cow. Apparently it's important enough to patrol our norther border that Customs is going to start using a $10 million Predator drone to search for people crossing illegally and bringing in drugs. The planes can stay aloft for 18 hours, and fly at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet, so they can keep us safe from those nasty Canucks trying to cross our borders with their Great White Northern Lights weed. According to NY Times story, quoting John Stanton of the Customs and Border Protection Service:

Along the entire northern border, Customs and Border Protection officials make about 4,000 arrests and intercept about 40,000 pounds of illegal drugs each year.

For the moment, though, the flights from Grand Forks will remain mostly along the 300 miles of the upper edge of North Dakota and a slim part of Minnesota, Mr. Stanton said.

He went on to say that Customs was going to begin employing the drone flights "...because the planes had become available..." which just goes to show you, if you build it, they will come. If there's a technology available, the anti-drug fanatics will find a way and a justification to use it. To wit, in a delightfully Rumsfeldian quote

Asked whether he expected to uncover a significant problem with drugs, border crossings or terrorism in northern North Dakota, Mr. Stanton said no one was sure.

“We hope to actually use this aircraft to measure that,” he said. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Excellent. Your tax dollars at work.

General John Stanton of the Customs and Border Protection Service